Number Of Hierarchical Levels Research Articles

Combating Financial Crisis: Building Super-Structures of International Financial Regulation

The architecture of international financial regulation consists of structures built through a number of crises. Subsequent to Bretton Woods, the world witnessed the globalization of finance which highlighted the increased risks which follow in cross-border financial activity. National regulators started to develop cooperative solutions to mitigate these cross-border risks. Nascent and informal regulatory structures were formed by organizations of national regulators and standard setters such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. In the wake of the Latin American debt crisis and East Asian financial crisis of the 1990s, these structures started to take on a more Byzantine form. The various groupings of industrialized states such as the G-7, G-8, G-10 and G-20 and Financial Stability Forum, together with international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank started to play a larger role in international standard setting. The current financial crisis (the “Crisis”) provides another opportunity to reexamine existing structures of international financial regulation. It has provoked intensified calls for increased international cooperation in the regulation of international finance on a number of hierarchical levels and with respect to a variety of substantive issues. Broadly, this paper examines the prospects for such cooperation. First, it seeks to examine the structural aspects of international financial regulatory reform in the wake of the Crisis. It reviews ongoing efforts at constructing international financial regulatory structures in the form of the G-20 through the Financial Stability Board and in the EC. It argues that three distinct kinds of integration are taking place through these efforts: horizontal integration between various international financial institutions; cross-sectoral integration between different sectoral regulators having to collaborate to formulate cross-cutting norms; and vertical integration between actors of different hierarchies which set standards with different degrees of binding-ness and specificity. Second, this paper discusses the prospects for continued international cooperation in the wake of the Crisis. This section examines prevailing theories of international financial cooperation as well as political economy theories of economic crisis. It is argued that prospects for continued international cooperation rest on two factors. Foremost, the opportunity for international cooperation presented by the Crisis rests on whether domestic interest groups and coalitions have re-aligned themselves in favor of regulatory structures which are more stringent. If so, this re-alignment should point toward international cooperation to building structures of international financial regulation which provide higher standards of regulation and/or more enhanced enforcement or compliance mechanisms. Next, it is also argued that international financial reform is highly dependent on the domestic politics of dominant states. In other words, the viability of international cooperation is dependent on the extent in which domestic interest groups and coalitions in dominant states have re-aligned themselves in favor of higher standards of regulation. Third, this paper takes a closer look at the three kinds of integration that are taking place and examines their implications for international cooperation. Finally, this paper concludes by examining some policy options for the creation of structures of international financial regulation.

Adaptive terrain triangulation using the representation of quad trees by vertex textures and wavelet estimation of vertex significance

A method of adaptive terrain triangulation is proposed that can be implemented in hardware. The method is based on an estimate of the static error of a quad tree nodes using wavelet transforms and on the representation of the resulting quad tree by a vertex texture. The proposed method has the following characteristic features: the adjacent nodes of the generated adapted mesh can differ in any number of hierarchical levels; the triangulation process is not limited by the size of the decomposition segments, which solves the problem of joining segments without inserting additional nodes; the multiscale terrain representation used in the method makes it possible to store the levels of detail in the graphics processor memory as a multilevel vertex texture; thus, the costliest part of the algorithm can be efficiently implemented using a vertex shader. When constructing the triangulation, the algorithm takes into account both local features of the terrain and the camera location; also, it has a natural support of geomorphing.

Modular networks with hierarchical organization: The dynamical implications of complex structure

Several networks occurring in real life have modular structures that are arranged in a hierarchical fashion. In this paper, we have proposed a model for such networks, using a stochastic generation method. Using this model we show that, the scaling relation between the clustering and degree of the nodes is not a necessary property of hierarchical modular networks, as had previously been suggested on the basis of a deterministically constructed model. We also look at dynamics on such networks, in particular, the stability of equilibria of network dynamics and of synchronized activity in the network. For both of these, we find that, increasing modularity or the number of hierarchical levels tends to increase the probability of instability. As both hierarchy and modularity are seen in natural systems, which necessarily have to be robust against environmental fluctuations, we conclude that additional constraints are necessary for the emergence of hierarchical structure, similar to the occurrence of modularity through multi-constraint optimization as shown by us previously.

Pollen and the Evolution of Arctotideae (Compositae)

Recent molecular studies have elucidated the phylogeny of Compositae tribe Arctotideae, and found it to contain two, well supported, monophyletic subtribes, Arctotidineae and Gorteriinae, as well as some polyphyletic and problematic genera. On the basis of this new information, it may now be possible to identify diagnostic characters and synapomorphies to support the groupings defined within Arctotideae. Pollen characters have been shown to be particularly variable in Compositae. This paper aims to investigate the utility of those characters in the context of recent molecular phylogenies, in order to determine synapomorphic and diagnostic characters in Arctotideae. The pollen of each genus is described, illustrated with scanning electron micrographs, and optimised on a phylogeny of the tribe. Many pollen characters were found to be very informative when considered in the context of the current best estimate of phylogenetic relationships. Pollen morphology provides synapomorphies for clades at a number of hierarchical levels within Arctotideae, including the two subtribes, Arctotidinae and Gorteriinae, the grouping of Eremothamnus and Hoplophyllum, and smaller clades. It also supports the exclusion of Platycarpha from the tribe. The plesiomorphic palynological state for the tribe is discussed. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of different patterns of lophae (surface ridges). A single origin for the lophate condition is proposed as the most parsimonious mode of evolution in Arctotideae.

Organizational and economic consequences of business e-procurement intensity

The implementation of e-procurement by companies implies a diverse degree of Internet use during different purchasing processes. The purpose of this research is to analyze how the intensity of Internet use in the procurement process impacts firms from a different point of view: organizational and economical. The organizational consequences refer to the structure of the buying center in terms of size, participation, number of hierarchical levels and functional areas. Economical consequences materialize in concrete purchase results in terms of efficacy and efficiency. In this research, the intensity of Internet use in the procurement process is determined by two factors: the stage of purchasing process and the number of Internet tools involved in each stage. The survey was performed by splitting the sample of 103 industrial Spanish companies into two groups: those showing a low intensity of Internet use in the procurement process and a second group with a high intensity. Results show that intensity of e-procurement causes an increase in buying center size and in the number of functional areas involved in the purchase. We also notice that efficacy and efficiency increase, either by reducing costs in the search for information or by allowing the purchase of higher quality products at lower prices. To sum up, our research provides empirical evidence for Internet added-value in terms of its ability to transform the information stream within firms, and the consequences derived from this fact on industrial purchasing processes. All these factors allow better purchasing decisions to be made. It can be a powerful instrument to reach competitive advantage and can establish itself as a key factor for business success.

Differentiation in knowledge‐creating organizations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on the analysis of the influence of organizational design variables on the creation of knowledge within the organization. The impact that enablers have on knowledge creation has been widely demonstrated and established in the relevant literature. Using this assumption as a starting‐point, the main aim of this study is to consider and explore the role of differentiation – horizontal and vertical – in knowledge creation using enablers as mediator variables.Design/methodology/approachThe paper has created a model of relations of the design variables that correspond to differentiation – horizontal job specialization, vertical job specialization and number of hierarchical levels; the enablers – autonomy, redundancy and variety; and knowledge creation. This model is then contrasted with an empirical investigation of a quantitative nature, using a sample of 167 large Spanish firms.FindingsThe findings in the paper confirm both the impact of enablers on knowledge creation, as defined in the literature, and the fact that vertical specialization is shown to be a suitable design variable for creating knowledge through the autonomy enabler. However, the relation between the horizontal specialization of work and the number of hierarchical levels is not confirmed as being significant in terms of knowledge creation.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper considers the main limitation of this research to be that the questionnaire was answered by only one respondent, which forced one to consider the outcomes of this research with a certain degree of caution.Practical implicationsThe results in the paper may be relevant for managers in decision making with regard to organizational design. Herein, reference is made to variables relative to job design and the number of hierarchical levels.Originality/valueThe value of this paper lies in two aspects. First, it overlaps two fields of research; organizational design and knowledge creation. Second, although there is a lot of literature on knowledge creation, there are very few empirical studies, especially of a quantitative nature.

Mobility protocols and RSVP performance in wireless IPv6 networks: shortcomings and solutions

AbstractResource reservation protocol (RSVP) is a network‐control protocol used to guarantee Quality‐of‐Service (QoS) requirements for real‐time applications such as Voice‐over‐IP (VoIP) or Video‐over‐IP (VIP). However, RSVP was designed for end‐systems whose IP addresses do not change. Once mobility of an end‐system is allowed, the dynamically changing mobile IP address inevitably impacts on RSVP performance. Our study aims to first quantify the significance of this impact, and then propose a modified RSVP mechanism that provides improved performance during handoffs. Our simulations reveal that the deployment of standard RSVP over Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) does not yield a satisfactory result, particularly in the case of VIP traffic. Fast Handovers for Mobile IPv6 (FMIPv6) was found to be providing the best performance in all tested scenarios, followed by Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) with a single exception: during low handoff rates with VoIP traffic, MIPv6 outperformed HMIPv6. We then designed a new RSVP mechanism, and tested it against standard RSVP. We found that the proposed approach provides a significant improvement of 54.1% in the Total Interruption in QoS (TIQoS) when deployed over a MIPv6 wireless network. For HMIPv6, performance depended primarily on the number of hierarchical levels in the network, with no improvement in TIQoS for single‐level hierarchy and up to 37% for a 5‐level hierarchy. FMIPv6 on the other hand, provided no room for improvement due to pre‐handoff signaling and the tunneling mechanism used to ensure a mobile node (MN)'s connectivity during a handoff, regardless of the RSVP mechanism used. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Numbers and Narratives: Quantitative and Qualitative Convergence Across Constructivist Assessments

This study was the first to investigate the coherence of personal constructs across three constructivist assessments (repertory grid technique, laddering interviews, and self-characterizations) for 35 adults who were diverse in age and gender. We evaluated the degree of convergence specifically in the areas of cognitive complexity, self-esteem/adjustment, and thematic content of constructs across the three measures, which ranged from primarily quantitative to primarily qualitative in emphasis. Results provided mixed evidence of convergence for the different measures derived from the various methods. For example, although some measures, such as repertory grid-based indices of complexity or differentiation, showed significant correlation, little evidence of triangulation was observed across methods. Likewise, although some measures (e.g., number of hierarchical levels in ladders, number of positive self-appraisals in characterizations) were stable over one month, other scores were less so. Overall, reliable content coding of constructs derived from the grids, ladders, and self-characterizations suggested that each assessment displayed relative strengths in eliciting themes of a moral, existential, or relational character, respectively.

The Optimal Human Ventral Stream from Estimates of the Complexity of Visual Objects

The part of the primate visual cortex responsible for the recognition of objects is parcelled into about a dozen areas organized somewhat hierarchically (the region is called the ventral stream). Why are there approximately this many hierarchical levels? Here I put forth a generic information-processing hierarchical model, and show how the total number of neurons required depends on the number of hierarchical levels and on the complexity of visual objects that must be recognized. Because the recognition of written words appears to occur in a similar part of inferotemporal cortex as other visual objects, the complexity of written words may be similar to that of other visual objects for humans; for this reason, I measure the complexity of written words, and use it as an approximate estimate of the complexity more generally of visual objects. I then show that the information-processing hierarchy that accommodates visual objects of that complexity possesses the minimum number of neurons when the number of hierarchical levels is approximately 15.

Telework in the ICT sector: multivariate analysis of its determinant factors in Spain

This paper presents an analysis of the use of telework in firms belonging to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. Using data gathered from 280 Spanish firms, our empirical study included analysing the general characteristics of this new type of work practice in ICT firms. The view is to reveal the most widespread mode of telework in use, the number of days it occurs, the number of hierarchical levels and other relevant aspects determining its operation.

The impact of e-procurement on the structure of the buying centre

The purpose of this research is to analyse empirically how the use of the internet in procurement affects the organisational structure of the buying centre in terms of size, participation, number of hierarchical levels and functional areas. The survey was performed using a questionnaire sent to a selection of Spanish industrial firms from different sectors. The final sample group consisted of 103 firms. Results show that internet use leads to an increase in the number of individuals involved in the buying centre and the functional areas (purchase, engineering, production and marketing) that intervene in the buying centre.

Koncepti policentrične ureditve Slovenije

Besedilo obravnava koncepte policentričnega razvoja Slovenije, kakršni so bili zasnovani v treh planskih dokumentih od leta 1974 do 2004, hkrati pa izpostavlja nekatere vsebine, ki bi jih kazalo ponovno premisliti. To so: namen policentrizma, število regionalnih središč, število hierarhičnih nivojev in ukrepi za izvajanje koncepta.

Stability of solutions of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model with respect to replications of the phase space

We use real replicas within the Thouless, Anderson, and Palmer construction to investigate stability of solutions with respect to uniform scalings in the phase space of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model. We show that the demand of homogeneity of thermodynamic potentials leads in a natural way to a thermodynamically dependent ultrametric hierarchy of order parameters. The derived hierarchical mean-field equations appear equivalent to the discrete Parisi RSB scheme. The number of hierarchical levels in the construction is fixed by the global thermodynamic homogeneity expressed as generalized de Almeida-Thouless conditions. A physical interpretation of a hierarchical structure of the order parameters is gained.

Evolutionary prisoner’s dilemma game on hierarchical lattices

An evolutionary prisoner's dilemma (PD) game is studied with players located on a hierarchical structure of layered square lattices. The players can follow two strategies [ D (defector) and C (cooperator)] and their income comes from PD games with the "neighbors." The adoption of one of the neighboring strategies is allowed with a probability dependent on the payoff difference. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to study how the measure of cooperation is affected by the number of hierarchical levels (Q) and by the temptation to defect. According to the simulations the highest frequency of cooperation can be observed at the top level if the number of hierarchical levels is low (Q<4) . For larger Q , however, the highest frequency of cooperators occurs in the middle layers. The four-level hierarchical structure provides the highest average (total) income for the whole community.

Compensation and Span of Control in Hierarchical Organizations

This article presents evidence on the relationship between compensation ratios and spans of control within hierarchical organizations. We find that compensation ratios are lower than span of control at any position within the hierarchy, which is consistent with an elasticity of compensation to a number of subordinates lower than one. Managers’ human capital endowments determine a significant part of the salary differences throughout hierarchical levels, as predicted by models of talent allocation in hierarchies. Differences in the size of firms should be attributed more to differences in their number of hierarchical levels than to variations in the span of control.

Control loss and Fayol’s gangplanks

Williamson’s (1971) model of control loss in organizational hierarchies describes the cumulative decay of influence of superiors over subordinates who are separated by a number of hierarchical levels in the chain-of-command. This paper shows that control loss may be deduced from a network theory of social influence, and it shows that ties among actors at the same hierarchical level—Fayol’s gangplanks—may constrain control loss in organizational hierarchies. The structural mitigation of control loss by Fayol’s gangplanks increases with superiors’ span of control and depends on their capacity to maintain influence upon immediate subordinates in the presence of the lateral influences among subordinates.

Negotiation Support Models for Integrated Natural Resource Management in Tropical Forest Margins

Van Noordwijk, M., T. P. Tomich and B. Verbist 2001. Negotiation Support Models for Integrated Natural Resource Management in Tropical Forest Margins. Conservation Ecology 5(2):21. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-00344-050221

Team Leaders of Self-Managed Work Groups: A Contradiction?&#x0D;

This study presents nine Italian cases of SMWT adoption. The powerful role of trade unions in Italy has made it difficult to use this practice for increasing pressure on the workers. In only three cases the introduction of SMWT took place simply as a means of broadening, rotating and partially enriching working tasks with the aim of reducing the number of hierarchical levels (without changing the hierarchical character of leadership). The breadth of the objective underlying the introduction of self-managed teams, the breadth of the training provided and the results achieved are inter-related: only a clear organisational strategy accompanied by adequate training could allow significant results. Degree of production variability, objectives of autonomy and their partial achievement, and breadth of training provided were interrelated: firms with the greatest need for flexibility were those that are more actively interested in pursuing the idea of self-management and supporting it with broadly based training.

Sequences of manufacturing improvement initiatives: the case of delayering

Changes in manufacturing often result in decision making being decentralised. As a consequence of the decentralisation of decision making, the number of hierarchical levels in the organisation is often reduced. This paper examines when a delayering of the organisation takes place during manufacturing improvement. For two and a half years, the authors participated in and studied one company’s implementation of lean production. The observations from the clinical study are compared with existing operations management theory. The findings indicate the importance of delayering the organisation early during manufacturing improvement, to create a platform for further improvement.

Optimization of hierarchical routing protocols

This paper concentrates on hierarchical routing protocols and their optimization. In a hierarchical routing protocol the network is divided into independent routing areas so that a node has complete routing information on its partition, but only reduced routing information of the “outside world” (i.e. the other partitions). Such routing protocols have been introduced in the early 1980s in order to decrease the overhead of dynamic routing protocols in large networks. However, such an approach may degrade the network performance. The aim of this work is to understand and quantify some aspects of the influence of this clustering process on network performance, and to determine how a given network (of a given topology) should be clustered under some optimization criteria. This problem has been already considered in the past, using a deterministic worst-case approach, for different optimization criteria. We generalize and refine the known results using a random geometric approach. This framework allows us to calculate explicitly the averages of various relevant variables (such as the size of the routing table and connection set-up latency) as a function of the topological parameters (such as the number of hierarchical levels). Optimum structures are then easily deduced.